The technique of capillary electrophoresis (“CE”) is a widely used analytical method because of several technical advantages that it provides, namely: (i) capillaries containing a separation medium have high surface-to-volume ratios and dissipate heat efficiently which, in turn, permits high voltage fields to be used for rapid separations; (ii) minimal sample volume is needed; (iii) superior resolution is attainable; and (iv) the technique can easily be automated, e.g., Camilleri, Ed., Capillary Electrophoresis: Theory and Practice (CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1993); Grossman et al., Eds., Capillary Electrophoresis (Academic Press, San Diego, 1992). Because of these advantages, there has been great interest in applying CE to the separation of biomolecules, particularly in nucleic acid analysis. The need for rapid and accurate separation of nucleic acids, particularly deoxyribonucleic acid (“DNA”) arises in the analysis of polymerase chain reaction products and DNA sequencing fragment analysis, e.g., Williams, Methods 4:227-232 (1992); Drossman et al., Anal. Chem., 62:900-903 (1990); Huang et al., Anal. Chem., 64:2149-2154 (1992); Swerdlow et al., Nucleic Acids Research, 18:1415-1419 (1990).
The citation of any reference in Section 2 of this application is not an admission that the reference is prior art to the application.